She threw her thoughts into the past with an immense regret.A group on the kerbstone broke into song:
Now,honey,yo'stay in yo'own back yard,Doan min'what dem white chiles do;What show yo'suppose dey's a-gwine to gib A little black coon like yo'?
So stay on this side of the high boahd fence,An',honey,doan cry so hard;Go out an'a-play,jes'as much as yo'please,But stay in yo'own back yard.
The tune,with a taking lilt in it,made no impression on the old woman.
And she thought with regret that the old tunes had died out with the people who sang them.These people had lost the trick of enjoying themselves in a simple manner.Ah for the good old times,when the street was as good as a play,and the people drank and quarrelled and fought and sang without malice!A meaner race had come in their stead,with meaner habits and meaner vices.Her thoughts were interrupted by a tinkling bell,and a voice that cried:
"Peas an'pies,all 'ot!--all 'ot!"
It was the pieman,pushing a handcart.He went the length of the street,unnoticed.She thought of Joey,dead and gone these long years,with his shop on wheels and his air of prosperity.His widow lived on the rent of a terrace of houses,but his successor was as lean as a starved cat,for the people's tastes had changed,and the chipped-potato shop round the corner took all their money.She thought with pride of Joey and the famous wedding feast--the peas,the pies,the saveloys,the beer,the songs and laughter.Ah well,you could say what you liked,the good old times were gone for ever.Once the street was like a play,and now.Her thoughts were disturbed again by a terrific noise in the terrace opposite.
The door of a cottage flew open,and a woman ran screaming into the road,followed by her husband with a tomahawk.But as the door slammed behind him,he suddenly changed his mind and,turning back,hammered on the closed door with frantic rage,calling on someone within to come out and be killed.Then,as he grew tired of trying to get in,he remembered his wife,but she had disappeared.